Older person’s action plan

Siân Berry: We were expecting an older person’s action plan this year, but the draft has not yet been published because of delays caused by the coronavirus crisis. Could you tell me when you expect it will be published?

The Mayor: In line with my commitment to make London an age-friendly city, my officers were working hard last year in collaboration with Age UK London and members of my Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Group to produce an action plan setting out how the work of the GLA Group could respond to the priorities of older Londoners.
That work involved an extensive process of engagement with older Londoners that helped reveal their priority concerns at the point when the pandemic began to take hold. These included concerns relating to the inclusiveness of the built environment, digital exclusion, travel, housing, and as issues relating to physical and mental wellbeing.
I know that both the pandemic and the resulting lockdown have hit older Londoners particularly hard, creating new priorities and challenges. Responding to these challenges has been a priority for the GLA during the response to the pandemic and will continue to be so as we move into recovery. The work on the original action plan has fed directly into the design of the nine recovery missions and the specific projects that will underpin them.
Equality, diversity and inclusion has been adopted as a cross-cutting principle for the recovery programme, and we will be making clear how this work will deliver for a number of different groups – including older Londoners – later in the year.